


Midnight on Spear Pillar

by porygonkin



Series: Legendary Medium [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Gen, Mt. Coronet, Shinou-chihou | Sinnoh Region (Pokemon), Spear Pillar, Yabureta Sekai | Distortion World (Pokemon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porygonkin/pseuds/porygonkin
Summary: Team Galactic has captured the Space-Time Dragons, and Cyrus is on the precipice of putting his twisted plan into motion. But a third party watches from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. Prequel to "Sinjoh."
Series: Legendary Medium [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912750
Kudos: 12





	1. Fate's Blood-Red Chain

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to the Legendary Medium story "Sinjoh," but can stand alone and doesn't require you to read "Sinjoh" first.

By the time Dawn and Barry reached the summit, it was already too late.

The storm clouds brewed over Mt. Coronet for the entirety of their ascent, an ominous, foreboding herald of what they would find there. Team Galactic’s plan - the plan of their grand leader, Cyrus, specifically - had succeeded. Hope, it seemed, was lost. But Dawn wasn’t about to give up.

The first obstacle at the summit was the tandem of Mars and Jupiter, of whom Dawn and Barry made quick work, wiping out their teams with curious ease. Barry hung back to keep them at bay after the battle, while Dawn turned her attention to the long staircase in front of her, at the summit of which was Cyrus, the man who wanted to tear the world asunder.

“I got these two, Dawn!” he shouted, using his Infernape and Heracross to hold them up. Dawn, however, couldn’t help but notice that neither Galactic Admin was putting up all that much of a protest, instead merely watching with matching smirks as she ran up to Spear Pillar. Upon setting foot on the Pillar, Dawn could immediately see why.

Dialga and Palkia had been summoned, and defeated, bound by the long Red Chain twisted around each of their necks. The Lake Trio, Sinnoh’s fiercest guardians, were strewn about, completely incapacitated, either by Cyrus or by the combined might of the space-time dragons they were tasked with keeping at bay. Dawn recalled, vaguely, Cynthia’s words - the Lake Trio could subdue one of them individually, but not both. Cyrus, studied as he was, surely knew this as well, and knew how to manipulate the dragons to overwhelm the trio.

He’d played his hand perfectly, it seemed. No weak points, no ways to counter. 

He’d won.

“Cyrus!” Dawn shouted, Poké Ball in hand. Not that Torterra would do all that much good here, against a man wielding the embodiments of time and space, but she didn’t have any other options.

Cyrus, for his part, ignored her. She could only see a bit of his face at this angle, but he seemed utterly focused, the rest of the world falling away from his view. His eyes were fixated on Dialga and Palkia, powerless before him, submitted fully to his will. Dawn knew little of the man himself, but she got the feeling of a man whose ambitions were mere moments from being fulfilled, and it terrified her.

“Everything is ready,” he drawled, his voice flat even on the precipice of triumph. “Everything is ready…for the creation of a new world.”

He stepped forward, crouching down to pick up the end of the Red Chain that bound Dialga and Palkia. The chain sent its energy firing through him the moment he touched it, enveloping him in a red aura. He let out a low growl at the sensation, but stood his ground, gripping the Chain tightly.

“Now…all will end.”

He raised his fist.

“And everything will begin.”

The red aura stretched through the Chain to envelop Dialga and Palkia as well, and the twin dragons screamed out in protest. Dawn covered her ears, wincing.

Cyrus began to hover, the power of the Chain lifting him into the air. He twitched and winced, but kept a white-knuckle grip on it, pulling on the Chain and tying it around his waist. 

“Dialga, Palkia!” he roared, over the din that their screams were creating. “Shaping this world is a double spiral of time and space. Yes, the very things that you have the ability to control!”

He whipped the Chain again. “You will do my BIDDING! I will have you abilities as MINE!”

Someone put a hand on Dawn’s shoulder, and she glanced over to see Barry, who’d raced up to watch the spectacle with her. Behind him, Mars and Jupiter had followed, but dropped to their knees upon seeing Cyrus, transfixed by his power.

“Barry, what the hell?” Dawn snapped. “Why did you bring them here?”

“The man’s floating in the air and doing his villain monologue, Dawn!” Barry fired back. “I wasn’t going to just watch that fifty feet down from the summit! You know me! I need a front row seat!”

The storm clouds overhead, dark grey and roiling, had blotted out the sun entirely, and Spear Pillar was awash in the glow of the Red Chain and its three bound occupants. The dragons were fighting as hard as they could - Dialga was speeding up and slowing down at a manic pace, and Palkia was distorting, attempting to open up portals all around it. But the Chain held up, restricting their primal power to their immediate area. All the while, Cyrus watched, shouting out his manifesto.

“With the power I wield, I will create an entirely new world!” he declared. “The incomplete, ugly world we live in will be no more. _Nothing_ can remain. It’s all going! Right down to zero! I will create the _ultimate_ world, a world of complete perfection! Nothing so _vague_ and _incomplete_ as spirit can remain. In just a moment…we will be free of the cruelty of feeling. Free of emotion! PERFECT, at long last!”

Dawn had heard enough. She was sick of it - sick of Cyrus’s insane rhetoric, sick of Team Galactic, sick of being unable to stop what had been in motion for so long. She had to do something, even if it ended up being in vain. 

Mesprit was to her left, sprawled out on the ground. Uxie was behind Dialga and Palkia, and Azelf to their right, near Uxie. She couldn’t reach all of them herself, but Mesprit could maybe be enough for now. Digging into her bag, she found her last Max Revive, clutched it tightly in her palm, and raced over to the fallen Lake Guardian.

Cyrus took no notice of her. Barry whipped around to hold the two Admins back, but neither of them paid Dawn any mind, still captivated by their leader overhead. The lack of resistance was unsettling, but Dawn pushed it out of her mind as she pulled open Mesprit’s mouth and fed it the Max Revive, clamping its jaw to break the medicine and activate it. 

Mesprit’s eyes shot open. It looked from side to side, trying to regain its bearings, gaze settling on Dawn after a moment.

“Help me, Mesprit,” she implored to the guardian. “Please. I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”

Mesprit stared into Dawn’s eyes, its expression blank. Then, it hovered up out of Dawn’s grasp…and teleported away.

“Wh - what?”

Dawn stared at the space where Mesprit had been just moments before, dumbfounded. Where had it gone?

“Did Mesprit just dip??” Barry shouted, clutching his head with his hands. Dawn could only shake her head, completely lost.

Overhead, the aura around Cyrus had grown even brighter. His eyes were glowing, wind was picking up all around him. It almost seemed as though he was losing control.

“IT IS TIME!” he bellowed. “MY DREAM WILL BE REALITY!”

Dawn braced herself, waiting for the end. Whatever Cyrus had planned, however, never came. Instead, Dawn felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the area. The roaring, the dragons’ screams…it all faded away, as if someone had hit the mute button. The Red Chain faded, reverting back to a dull scarlet, and Cyrus dropped to the ground.

“What?” he shouted, whipping his head around, trying to make sense of what was happening. “What the hell is this?”

In front of him, a black portal began to grow from the ground. Its maw opened wide, tearing the Red Chain to shreds and ripping its remains off of Dialga, Palkia, and Cyrus. The summit’s titular pillars themselves seemed to bend inwards towards the portal, as if gravity had been re-centered. At its center, two glowing red orbs appeared, growing larger every second.

“What…” Cyrus gasped, staring at the portal, eyes wide. For the first time, he seemed…unsettled. Scared, almost, if Dawn didn’t know better. 

The portal began to bulge outward, stretching up out of the ground. The red orbs led the way, and Dawn realized, with horror, that they weren’t simply orbs.

They were eyes.

“What is _that?_ ” Barry shouted behind her. Dawn had no answers for him. All she could do was watch, and tremble.

The black shadow in the portal grew and grew, its top taking the shape of a crown. Giant wings sprouted from either side, lined with red fang-like daggers. It towered above them, significantly larger than Dialga or Palkia, neither of whom had recovered yet from the bondage of the Red Chain. The portal’s gravity sucked in Uxie and Azelf, their motionless bodies tumbling towards it and disappearing.

The creature, whatever it was, pulsated with dark energy, its surface rippling in a way that Dawn had never seen before. It was almost as if the creature…wasn’t of this world.

Cyrus pushed himself back to his feet, staring down the intruder. He wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, face settling back into that familiar mask.

“You, draped in shadow…” he said, brushing off some debris from his jacket. “You think you can interfere? What gives you the right? What _dominion_ do you think you have here?”

The creature’s answer came swiftly. Its wings contorted into arms, the ends turning to claws, and with impossible speed, the arms lashed out at Dialga and Palkia. Its claws dug into the gods of time and space, dragging them towards its essence. They lashed out, protested, tried their hardest to fight back, but in the end, it mattered not. Within seconds of contact, the shadow consumed them both, leaving nothing behind.

Cyrus dropped to his knees, aghast. All of his work - years of preparation for this moment - gone, in an instant. Never mind the wider implications on the very fabric of time and space, now that their guardians had been destroyed. At the moment, it felt as though none of that mattered, in the wake of this primal force in front of them, one that had been able to consume two Legendary Pokémon like it was nothing.

“No…” he gasped. “This…this cannot be. What of my new world? My new galaxy?”

He smashed his fist into the ground, enraged.

“WHAT ARE YOU?” Cyrus roared. “SHOW YOURSELF TO ME!”

The creature gave no answers. Instead, as if in response, another tendril of shadow shot out of it, piercing straight through Cyrus’s chest. His eyes widened, mouth open in a wordless gasp, hands dropping to his sides. The tendril lifted his limp body up, pulling him back to the portal, and, all of a sudden, disappeared, retreating down into the portal, back to the hell it had emerged from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't the original follow-up plan to "Mt. Silver's New Resident." I've been working on an actual sequel for the past few months, now that I have the general arc of this series mapped out in my head. When the Sinnoh remakes were finally announced, though, I figured it was the right time to deploy the Legendary Medium re-telling of the Spear Pillar incident, the backbone and inciting event for the series that I referenced a few times in "Sinjoh."
> 
> The canon events in Platinum form the base of the story, but as you can see, a lot of pieces have been rearranged, some because I didn't want this to be a straight literary re-telling of the way the game plays out, and some because I wasn't actually super familiar with Platinum's story when I wrote "Sinjoh," which resulted in me having to do a lot of tweaking to bring this story in line with the canon that I've established. That includes Giratina being far more malevolent here than it is in Platinum, which, you know, stuff happens.
> 
> The Spear Pillar portion of this story is already done, and will be wrapped up in a few days with chapter two. The last chapter, which will be done sometime next week, will cover the Distortion World half, and should lead in pretty cleanly to "Sinjoh" by the end. Hope you enjoy!


	2. The Original One descends.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Dialga and Palkia's destruction, despair sets in. But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Dawn could do little but stare at the empty space where the portal had been. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. What she had just witnessed…it was simply inconceivable. She hadn’t signed up for this, this… _horror_. Dialga and Palkia, consumed by an eldritch abomination from another dimension. Cyrus, consumed by hubris, taken by the shadows. The Lake Guardians, gone. It was all too much for her to bear.

All she’d ever wanted was to be a Pokémon Master, and she’d never felt as far away from that goal as she did right now.

“Dawn! DAWN!”

The familiar voice snapped her out of her malaise, and she glanced behind her to see Cynthia racing up the steps, a thick tome tucked under her arm. In her haste, she tripped on a loose rock and nearly face-planted, stumbling into Barry, who was just barely able to keep her upright.

“I - I’m sorry…” she gasped out, clutching her chest. “I’m too late, aren’t I? I - I took too long to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” Barry prodded. “What the hell’s going on here? What was that shadow thing?”

“That shadow…” Cynthia shook her head. “That shadow…is the end of this world, Barry. That shadow was Giratina.”

Dawn furrowed her brow, confused. She’d never heard of Giratina before.

“The myths focus on Dialga and Palkia, the keepers of time and space in our world,” Cynthia continued. “They are Arceus’s original children. But, when it created this world, it needed a mirror, a counterweight. A balance. And that mirror needed a keeper. That keeper is Giratina.”

“Well, why’d it show up here, all of a sudden?” Barry asked. “I don’t get it.”

Cynthia held up the book she’d brought with her. It looked positively ancient, the spine cracked, the leather dull and dusty. Emblazoned across its front was a sigil - a triangle, each of its three points marked with a colored sphere, blue, pink, blood red.

“The legends say that Giratina grew bitter that Arceus had locked it away, condemned it to rule over a world whose existence was solely one of utility,” she said. “The mirror world - the Distortion World, as the texts call it - was a harsh, unfriendly place, and no living creatures wanted to reside there. It used to be freely accessible, in ancient times. But then, Giratina lashed out. It attempted to take over our world, exert its influence, get its revenge on Dialga and Palkia for being Arceus’s preferred children. But the Original One descended, smiting its unruly son, sending it back into the Distortion World permanently, and sealing it off. Supposedly, it has been there ever since, ruminating. Plotting.”

She looked down at the remnants of the Red Chain scattered all across Spear Pillar, her gaze hardening.

“Cyrus didn’t believe in the myths,” she spat. “He believed in the power of Dialga and Palkia, and nothing else. His meddling, with the Red Chain, with the Lake Guardians, with Dialga and Palkia…I think it created an opening. A lifeline to the Distortion World. Spear Pillar is where the boundary between our world and the Distortion World is at its weakest, and Cyrus began punching hole after hole in that barrier, all for his own selfish gains. Now, Giratina is ready to take its revenge.”

Dawn kept her eyes on the spot at Spear Pillar where the portal had been, superimposing the image of Giratina rising up in her mind’s eye over the scene. In the brief moments the beat was present in this world, Dawn swore that she felt…something coming from it. Powerful waves of emotion - rage, despair. Fear.

“If it wants to take its revenge…” Dawn mused, “why did it go back? Why not absorb Dialga and Palkia, and then finish the job?”

Cynthia’s eyes widened. 

“It did _what?_ ”

“It absorbed both of them!” Barry shouted, waving his arms to emphasize the point. “Sucked them right up into its weird shadow body! Uxie and Azelf got sucked into the portal, too!”

Cynthia shook her head, stunned.

“Then…then it’s too late,” she lamented. “It - it must have retreated into the Distortion World to acclimate to its new power. But once it recovers from that, you can be sure that it will return. And once it does…the only thing powerful enough to stop it would be the Original One.”

Barry threw his hands up. “We’re doomed, then! No one’s even seen Arceus in real life! Are you kidding me??”

As Cynthia and Barry went back and forth in their despair cycle, Dawn walked back to the spot where Mesprit had disappeared. She knelt down, brushing her fingers in the dirt where the Lake Guardian had been flung back, where she’d revived it. Where it had abandoned her. Or so she thought.

Overhead, she heard a twinkling sound. She stared up into the sky, where the storm clouds had parted, the sun’s rays breaking through the malaise. There, she was greeted by a welcome sight.

Mesprit, dropping down out of the clouds, something clutched in its paws. It hovered down to Dawn, descending in a wide circle around her, until it settled right at eye level. 

“Where’ve you been?” Dawn inquired, frowning. Mesprit’s only response was to offer what it held in its grasp - a flute, pale blue, with a blood-red extension at the top that appeared to be some kind of mouthpiece. Dawn took it in her hands, examining the item from all sides. There was a strange quality to it - despite appearing to be carved from stone, it felt impossibly light, almost as if she were holding nothing at all. On top of that, it seemed to vibrate in her hands, sending a tingling sensation throughout her entire body. 

Mesprit pointed at the red mouthpiece, watching Dawn with its wide yellow eyes. She looked from the flute to Mesprit, furrowing her brow as she tried to discern the message the Lake Guardian had for her.

“You…want me to play this?” Dawn asked. Mesprit nodded.

“But I don’t know how.”

Mesprit shook its head, pointing at the mouthpiece again. It seemed to be imploring her to just try, even though she had no idea what this was, or the purpose it served. But she trusted Mesprit, the Lake Guardian that had guided her throughout Sinnoh, that had yet to lead her astray, even in the darkest of times. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about it all just felt _right_. 

She took a deep breath, brought the flute to her mouth, and blew.

The tone was clear as a bell, and all-encompassing. Barry and Cynthia immediately took notice, watching Dawn in a mixture of puzzlement and awe as she played via sheer instinct. The rhythm was complex and involved, a smooth mix of arpeggios, elaborate runs, and all kinds of off-beat melodies that weaved together like a quilt. The song she played lasted nearly a minute, and Dawn descended into a trance-like state as she engaged with the flute, losing herself to the music. She didn’t open her eyes again until the end, as if waking from a dream. 

“Dawn!” Cynthia shouted. “Where did you get that!? What did you do!?”

Dawn didn’t get the chance to respond, as Spear Pillar began to shake and rumble, nearly knocking her over. Overhead, a bright light washed out the afternoon sky, and from its center, grand staircase began to materialize out of thin air, crystalline and iridescent. It folded down step by step until touching down at Spear Pillar’s exact center, connecting Sinnoh to the heavens above. Dawn had never seen anything so beautiful. 

The clouds parted, and a being began to descend the steps, ringed by the light of the gods.

Four legs. Snow white. A golden ring around its torso. Piercing red eyes.

The Original One.

Arceus.

“Holy shit,” Barry blurted out. Cynthia dropped to her knees, speechless. Dawn kept a tight grasp on the flute, watching in utter disbelief as the god of all Pokémon touched down on Sinnoh for the first time in recorded history.

The staircase vanished at the end of Arceus’s descent, its job complete. The Original One cast its sweeping gaze across the three of them, settling on Dawn and Mesprit. Its head tilted slightly downward, it seemed to take notice of the flute in Dawn’s hands, and with slow, deliberate steps, made its way to her. 

Mesprit floated in front of her, bowing its head at its creator. Arceus acknowledged the gesture with a slight nod, before gesturing for Mesprit to step aside, stopping in front of Dawn and gazing down at her.

Dawn met the Pokémon’s gaze as best she could. Her knees felt weak - she trembled in her boots, unable to grasp what was happening. Arceus looked infinitely more majestic, unfathomably more intimidating, than she ever could have imagined. Its coat seemed to reflect colors Dawn had never seen before. Its stance was utterly regal, projecting a supreme aura. 

The God of All Pokémon, indeed.

“Dawn,” Cynthia shouted again, beginning to regain her bearings. “How - what did you do? Where did you get the Azure Flute? How did this happen?”

“I - I…” Dawn stuttered, shaking her head. “M - Mesprit gave it to me. Told me to just…play.”

“ _WHAT?_ ” Cynthia exclaimed. “I - I don’t understand. The Azure Flute…they say that only those who are pure of heart and intention can even touch it, and those who play it can…can summon Arceus. And you…”

She shook her head, eyes still wide with shock. “You did it. We’re saved.”

Throughout this exchange, Arceus simply continued to observe Dawn. Following Cynthia’s declaration, however, it turned its attention to the center of Spear Pillar, where Giratina’s portal from the Distortion World had previously appeared. It took several deliberate steps in that direction, bowing down its head to examine the spot closely. Mesprit hovered behind it, flitting back and forth, restless.

Cynthia and Barry joined Dawn, Cynthia leaning in to examine the Azure Flute, while Barry watched Arceus work with his hands on his hips.

“What’s - what’s it doing?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Cynthia shook her head, seemingly lost for words. Dawn, however, had a suspicion.

“I think…” she started. “I think it’s figuring out the right spot to break into the Distortion World.”

Almost as if on cue, Arceus raised one of its hooves and stomped downward, creating a large, ephemeral fissure in Spear Pillar at the point of contact. Dark, chaotic matter poured out of the wound, lapping at Arceus’s legs. The Original One did not react, standing its ground and observing the portal it made for a moment, before turning its gaze back to Dawn. They locked eyes, and though it didn’t say a word, Dawn felt as though she knew precisely what had to happen next.

“I have to go.”

She stepped forward, towards Arceus, towards the portal to the Distortion World. 

“Dawn, wait -” Barry said, reaching out to grab her arm, but she brushed him off.

“It’ll be alright, Barry,” she said. “Arceus…I can feel it. Calling to me. I don’t - I don’t really know why, but it’s just…a feeling. It needs me.”

Barry made to protest again, but he was stopped by Cynthia, who held out an arm to block him.

“The Distortion World is chaos manifested,” she said, her face solemn. “The legends say that, after Giratina was locked away, it began to twist the realm to its liking. Perhaps…perhaps Arceus needs an anchor, in this world and the Distortion World. But, Dawn, that doesn’t - that doesn’t have to be you. You don’t have to do this.”

Dawn had nothing to say to that. Words didn’t matter now. Instead, she continued to walk towards Arceus, a march that felt impossibly far, despite only being a few yards away. Arceus turned to face her, its calm gaze piercing through her, beckoning her to it. 

She didn’t understand any of it, really. She was operating on instinct - a primal feeling, one that she’d never felt before, but trusted implicitly. She hadn’t wanted any of this to happen, no, but now that it was, it was beginning to feel like fate. 

“Dawn!”

She stood on the precipice of the portal now. Arceus used its hoof to expand its border, stretching the portal so that both it and Dawn could fit through with ease. She looked back to Barry, who had called out to her, ready to tell him off, expecting him to try and talk her out of it. Instead, however, when she looked to him, he seemed resigned to what was happening, and he only had one thing to say.

“Just…come back in one piece, Dawn. Please.”

Dawn gave him a smile a thumbs-up in return, adjusting her hat. 

“See you soon.”

She placed a hand on the ring around Arceus’s torso, gripping it tightly. A wave of calm washed over her.

They stepped forward together, and Dawn and Arceus descended into hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're way off the path from Platinum now.
> 
> Last chapter this weekend, probably. We'll see.


	3. That Distorted, Shattered Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn and Arceus descend into the Distortion World, hoping to find Giratina and stop its rampage.

She was falling.

How far - she couldn’t tell. How long - that was out of her reach, too.

Dawn lost all sense of self the moment she stepped into the Distortion World - fell in, more like. She’d stepped through the portal and immediately toppled forward into a cacophony of sound and color. None of it made any sense - she had no idea which way was up, down, left, right. She wasn’t even sure if she was alive or dead. The portal could have killed her the moment she stepped through, and Dawn wasn’t sure she’d ever really know. 

Ahead of her, a pinprick of light broke through the whirlwind of shadow, and she fixated on it, her salvation, her ticket out of whatever hell she’d been thrust into. The light grew, morphing outwards, until it took on a silhouette that brought Dawn great relief - Arceus, floating towards her in the abyss.

_Reach out, Dawn._

The voice reverberated in her head, sourceless. It wasn’t one she recognized, anything she’d heard before, but she heeded its direction, and stuck out her hand towards Arceus. They grew closer and closer, Dawn reaching out with all her might, until her fingertips brushed against its golden ring. The contact sent a jolt of energy through her, whiting out her vision.

The next thing Dawn knew, her feet were firmly planted on the ground. The world was no longer spinning. She was alive, apparently, though she didn’t have the first idea how she’d survived. By the grace of Arceus, she supposed. She dropped to her knees and vomited.

Her savior, meanwhile, stood nearby, solemnly gazing ahead. Dawn wound herself up to complain over the lack of advance notice that the portal would disorient her so much, but the thought was lost when she took in her new surroundings.

Time and space were broken. Slabs of land floated aimlessly in the void around them, with no sense of up or down. Waterfalls flowed backwards into nothing. Strange, alien plants twisted and turned, rapidly cycling between their sapling forms and disintegrating into dust. There wasn’t a single living creature in sight. 

The Distortion World was chaos distilled. The rules of the Pokémon world mattered not, here. This was Giratina’s domain, plain and simple, and she had to play by its rules - if there were any.

“What the hell…” she breathed, shaking her head. “What - what is all this?”

She looked to Arceus again for guidance. The Original One, to Dawn’s concern, seemed less confident now than it had when it beckoned her to join it in its journey to the Distortion World. It pawed at the ground below, observing as the dirt turned to coal, then turned its head upwards. Dawn could feel her stomach drop. If the god of all Pokémon, the supposed originator of this realm, seemed lost, what hope did they have to find Giratina and put a stop to its madness?

_“Piih!”_

The cry came from below - or, at least, Dawn suspected it had, but couldn’t be sure, given the havoc the Distortion World wreaked on her senses. Nonetheless, it was a familiar sound, one she was certain she’d heard before. 

_Is it…?_

The answer came quickly - Mesprit, floating up from below the shaky platform Dawn and Arceus resided on. It looked haggard, seemingly having dove into Arceus’s portal after them, without forethought or preparation. Dawn could sympathize with the Lake Guardian’s plight - she was already feeling nauseous again, despite emptying her stomach just moments earlier. But Mesprit, upon reaching them, showed an unexpected amount of resolve and determination, frantically floating around Arceus, pointing and jabbering on to the Original One. Dawn couldn’t make heads or tails of whatever it was saying, but Arceus appeared to be listening intently. 

“Mesprit, what’s going on?” she asked. “Do you - do you know how to navigate this place?”

_Its siblings are here._

That voice again, echoing in her skull, rattling her brain. She wasn’t sure before, but she was certain now - Arceus was reaching out to her. It had done so earlier, when she was lost in the chaos of the portal, too, grounding her, giving her an anchor to hold onto here, the same way she apparently served as Arceus’s anchor in their world.

Uxie and Azelf had been taken by Giratina when it first arrived, before it absorbed Dialga and Palkia. At the time, Dawn had feared the worst for them - but now, it seemed that those two, at least, had simply been brought to the Distortion World, and their energy would allow Mesprit to guide her and Arceus, presumably, to where Giratina laid in wait.

Mesprit, having conveyed its message, turned and soared off into the distance, imploring for Arceus and Dawn to follow. Between them, however, was little in the way of a path - nothing but a bunch of free-floating rock formations, several of them appearing to be spinning, preventing Dawn from even thinking of attempting to leap to them. 

Arceus stared out at Mesprit, then down at the void beneath them, just off the edge of the platform on which they stood. Like before, it seemed…hesitant. Unsure. Given that Arceus had not touched down upon the world it created at any point in recorded history, Dawn suspected that it must have lost the touch it once had for the realms it built. Perhaps all it needed was a bit of a push, a reminder of who it was.

“Hey…” she said, glancing up at Arceus. “You…you created this world, didn’t you? That means you have the power to shape it. You need to exert that control, or else we’ll never be able to make it to Giratina.”

Arceus gazed down at Dawn for a moment, its piercing red eyes feeling as though they were burning a hole in her chest. Part of her was screaming in her head for speaking so aggressively with the Original One, but her raw fear and desire to get out of this place as fast as she could manage was overpowering her reverence for Arceus.

“You can do this,” she implored. “You’re the god of our world, and this one, too. Giratina…it’s just one of your children, right? It can’t stand up to you, and even if this world was granted to it, it’s ultimately not the master of this domain. _You_ are.”

Arceus let out a low growl, but something in Dawn’s words seemed to resonate with it. It walked slowly, deliberately, to the edge of the platform they were situated on, casting its glare down into the abyss below, the swirling mass of chaos converging on them from all sides. Its eyes closed, and it seemed to take a breath, gathering itself, before reaching out with one hoof and stepping off the platform.

Dawn, despite herself, braced for a fall. But Arceus stayed stable, and when she looked down, she realized why - a new platform had grown out of thin air underneath Arceus’s hoof, supporting the Original One. When it took another, more confident step forward, more dirt coalesced to support it, until Arceus had walked entirely off the platform, generating its own base out of the primal energy of the Distortion World. 

“Whoa…” Dawn breathed, watching with awe as Arceus bent the Distortion World to its will. When it was certain of its stability, the Original One turned its head to look back at Dawn, passing on a simple message.

_Follow me._

Dawn struggled to hide her apprehension, but obliged, taking a nervous, uncertain step onto the improvised path Arceus had created. She held her breath the whole way, still half expecting to plummet downwards into the abyss. To her relief, however, it held, and upon seeing that she was stable, Arceus forged the path forward, striding with confidence towards Mesprit, who began to lead the pair deeper into the Distortion World. 

Chaos continued to dominate the environment as Arceus and Dawn followed Mesprit’s lead, navigating around the world’s myriad obstacles - the chunks of land, the waterfalls, the swirling dark matter all around them. Arceus had put up a shield, extending it just far out enough to cover Dawn if she stuck right behind it. The prospect of hovering so close to the Original One intimidated her, but she was far more nervous about the prospect of being lost to the void. 

Ahead of them, Mesprit pressed forward with unusual determination. Dawn had become used to the Lake Guardian’s flighty nature, typically erratic and excitable to a fault. Here, however, Mesprit seemed utterly single-minded, trudging forward through the Distortion World without even looking back to either Dawn or Arceus. She couldn’t imagine what it was feeling, not knowing whether or not it could save its brethren. She had to further spare herself the worries of what it would mean for Sinnoh if the Lake Guardians _couldn’t_ be recovered.

The more they traversed, however, the more Dawn began to feel that the Distortion World, for all its lack of order, _did_ have some semblance of rules. Each parcel of land, for instance, appeared to have its own center of gravity - whenever they reached one of them, she and Arceus had to re-orient themselves to ensure they were on the correct plane of gravity before proceeding with one of Arceus’s land bridges. The constant change in direction and orientation dizzied her, but Dawn pushed herself to stay focused, keeping close to Arceus. 

More immediately concerning was the feeling that the Distortion World was constricting on them the further they traversed into it. She was beginning to hear faint howls from the depths, growing in frequency and volume the deeper they went. Mesprit and Arceus both seemed unfazed by the noise, which Dawn supposed was to be expected - they were searching for Giratina, after all. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were walking into a trap, or, at least, were setting themselves up to be at a substantial disadvantage going in. This, after all, was Giratina’s home turf.

Up ahead, the floating land thinned out, leaving nothing but the void. Dawn could feel beads of nervous sweat rolling down her forehead, and she clenched her jaw, reaching out to grasp the ring circling Arceus’s torso for support.

“Hey, is this - is this the right way?” Dawn called out to Mesprit, her hands shaking. “There’s - there’s nothing here.”

As if in response to Dawn’s inquiry, Mesprit came to a halt, holding out an arm to stop Arceus as well. Whatever it saw, the Original One also seemed to take notice, lowering its head a little and dropping into a more aggressive stance. Dawn, for her part, could see nothing but blackness at first. Out of the darkness, however, a shape began to take form, one that rocked her to her core.

It was Cyrus - or, at least, Cyrus’s body. His eyes were jet black, as if his eye sockets were empty. His head hung limp, tilted unnaturally to the side, arms dangling lifelessly. A steady stream of dark matter emanated from the hole in his chest that Giratina had made when it abducted him. The sight was horrific, even considering that Cyrus had been Sinnoh’s public enemy number one. No one was deserving of a fate like this.

“So you’ve come to rebuke me.”

Dawn’s eyes widened. The voice - it sounded like him, and _seemed_ to emanate from Cyrus’s slack jaw, but the way it rumbled around them, the sinister, matter-of-fact way it addressed them…Dawn couldn’t help but feel that this was _not_ Cyrus speaking to them.

“Don’t you have anything to say, O Creator?”

Giratina. Using Cyrus like a puppet to address its father. The sight was simply ghastly.

Arceus, for its part, merely glared ahead at the man that hovered in front of them, offering no response, barely even an acknowledgment of Giratina’s declaration. 

“Hmph.” Cyrus’s head lolled to the other side. “Of course you don’t. You put me here, told me to rule over a world full of nothing. A world that doesn’t make sense. And then, when I dared to aspire to something more, you pushed me further into the cellar and slammed the door shut. And here I was, biding my time, when all of a sudden, I feel the door start to crack open. This one…this little human seemed to think he could rise above his station, did he not? Tried to grasp time and space in his fists, bend them to his will. But he didn’t know what lurked on the other side, did he? Looks like he found out, doesn’t it?”

Dawn could feel herself quaking, but stood her ground. She shifted around to Arceus’s side, keeping a tight grip on its ring, standing on the very edge of the platform it had generated for them. 

“Where are you, then?” she said, staring down the repurposed corpse of Cyrus. “Why are you hiding from us? Don’t you have the power of Dialga and Palkia now? How about you come out and face us?”

She forced a smirk, even as the fear threatened to make her vomit again.

“Scared of daddy?”

Cyrus’s eyebrow twitched.

“You’d best know your place, human. You’re standing among gods. Why are you even here, anyway? Is it, perhaps…”

The corner of Cyrus’s mouth curved ever so slightly upward. “Perhaps you _need_ this one, hm, O Creator? Pathetic. You’ve been gone from these two worlds for so long that you don’t even know how to exist here. And you _really_ think you can put me in my place?”

Cyrus’s head fell backwards. Mouth agape, dark matter began to pour from his eyes and mouth, coalescing above his head into a black cloud, swirling and pulsating, until it coalesced into a form Dawn thought she would only ever see in nightmares.

Gigantic, black spiked wings. A grey, serpentine body, with spiked protrusions all along the sides. A golden crown-like headpiece. Piercing, glowing red eyes.

The Fallen One, Giratina, fully formed.

Below it, Cyrus began to descend back into the void. Before he disappeared, however, Giratina had one more message to convey through him.

“This is the end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it happened again - undershot the chapter count prediction. Blame the Distortion World for being too expansive. 
> 
> It was hard to convey the image I have in my head of the Distortion World - from a gameplay standpoint, the representation in Platinum is great, but I think the clean, structured layout that was necessary for a satisfying game experience aren't quite as interesting for a story like this, so I tried to represent it more as absolute, unstructured chaos, though with a set of internal "rules", so to speak. 
> 
> Next chapter, Giratina vs. Arceus, and the end.


End file.
